Those having skill in the art are familiar with the America Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC) Standards for seating hardware. For instance, operator seats and non-operator seats have different design requirements depending on the threshold speeds under which they are to be occupied. A seat in a boat must be capable of sustaining impact and static loads for particular amounts of time, as well as capable of sustaining torque in the event that the seat is swivel-able. Both strength and durability are required of a given seat substructure in order to meet such safety codes.
Current seats on the market use defined injection molded, rotational-molded, blow-molded, or multi-material (wood, aluminum, composite) fabricated seat substructures, which limit long-term design flexibility of the seat. For example, different molds are required to provide different types, shapes, and/or sizes of seats. It is difficult for seat designers to justify the large investment required to develop a seat for a boat that does not provide customers with long term design and size flexibility.